Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by klyrs 1640 days ago
You want the government to be that involved in pair-selection in the population??? I am disturbed. Eugenics aside: you know that a direct result of this is that border services, local police, etc will have access to a database of dick pics, don't you?
2 comments
Barrin92 1640 days ago
the government has them anyway, it's just that in addition to having them, the tax payer also has to pay clearview AI or whoever else for providing that service privately. That's actually exactly how the US government acquires license plate and vehicle data in states where collecting that information directly is prohibited, they just use your money to buy that from the private surveillance industry. [1]

By believing in some sort of mythical distinction between private and public business you've created the worst world of all, in which a government can superficially claim its hands are clean, buy unlimited surveillance data from unregulated private firms, without any democratic accountability. You now have the privilege of filling up Peter Thiel's bank account, while Palantir runs a precrime division that your city council has never even heard of[2]

[1]https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/22/22244848/us-intelligence-...

[2]https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/27/17054740/palantir-predict...

link
unabridged 1640 days ago
If they used and published a fair algorithm for matching, they wouldn't really be involved in the matching they would just be providing a venue. Similar to a city providing public space for people to meet, like a fair.

Do you think the FBI, NSA, etc doesn't already have access to photos posted on dating sites in the US?

link
smegger001 1640 days ago
NSA match? Based on your porn search habits, google search history, amazon order history, geographic location, and a social graph based on phone record metadata we recommend you the best possible match.
link
samhw 1640 days ago
Even if true, "have access to" is doing a lot of work here. If I had a Borges-style Library of Babel with all the possible books in the world, all configurations of the letters of the alphabet, I would technically "have access to" all human knowledge. But that's very different from having a curated collection which includes specifically only those things, filtered perfectly for you.
link
google234123 1640 days ago
No, that's conspiracy theorists stuff. Of course, they can maybe get access with a court order.
link